


rise like lions after a slumber in--

by hypotheticalfanfic



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Homeless Bucky Barnes, Homelessness, M for language, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:33:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28446195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypotheticalfanfic/pseuds/hypotheticalfanfic
Summary: The weather turns, and the man lets Ji-hoon and Boyd teach him about the shelters, lets them argue good-naturedly about this or that soup kitchen, this or that mission. Lets them lead him on a grand tour of places with food and beds and the occasional doctor in the house, lets Ji-hoon touch him any time, lets Boyd boss him around.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Male Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. in greatly unknowable numbers

The minimal supplies in the first safe house - both more and less safe once the man systematically killed every HYDRA agent inside - took care of him for a few weeks. When he woke up to the smell of smoke and tear gas, he booked it, and found himself wandering, nothing in his pockets, someone hunting him ineptly but with real persistence. Primary needs for continued survival: oxygen, water, shelter, food, sleep. Mission critical additions: cash, small tools for required maintenance, different clothing, more knives. A scuffle interrupted his cataloging, but after a short and busy time, he was able to resume. Current resources: the tac gear the man had been sleeping in, two of his preferred knives, a go-bag lifted from the leaking corpse of one of the man’s former handlers who’d thought a few mumbled words still had enough power to stop the man from getting those needs filled.

Bag contents, noted while leaned into a corner across from several other leaking corpses: basic first aid kit, solar radio, hand-crank flashlight, mediocre set of combat knives, metal tube of matches, garbage bags, several rolls of duct tape, plastic container of damp cloth squares, fist-sized roll of American standard currency ( _Jesus Christ,_ an echo in the man’s brain comments, _we can live on that for a year_ ), painters’s masks, seven days’ dry rations, a can opener, and two large bottles of water plus one packet of tablets to put in other water ( _iodine pills, pal_ , the echo supplies, _we used to call ‘em iodine pills_ ).

The man puts everything back neatly except one of the masks, which he straps on ( _breathe, it’s not like the other one_ ) immediately. The mask is not serving its primary purpose of filtering out harmful chemicals and germs, necessarily, but it is covering some of the more identifiable parts of the man’s face, and so is a net gain. The clothes from what corpses are of appropriate build help obscure the tactical gear and his general frame, and give the arm adequate coverage. The baseball cap and gloves found in the go-bag help as well, though the man finds himself frowning at the cap for a reason he can’t place ( _a goddamn Giants fan, you gotta be shitting me_ , the echo sounds furious and the man, for some reason, wants to laugh).

Soon enough the man has found an area frequented by several people who are clearly practiced at living out of doors ( _holy shit, it’s a goddamn Hooverville_ ). Many of the people milling about exhibit symptoms of drug addiction and/or mental illness, where his unsettling ( _hair-trigger?_ the echo offers) body language is much more acceptable. The man sits on the ground, his back against a culvert, and watches another man shuffle a deck of cards with gnarled hands. An hour, two, longer, the hypnotic shuffle sounds rattle into the man’s mind in a familiar way. The other man is half-reclining in a nest of blankets, a large square of cardboard folded neatly by his side. The other man sees him watching, and moves his mouth in a way the man recognizes to be a smile.

“Hey, man, we got poker going when the sun gets down. Boyd,” the other man raises one arm ( _don’t, it’s okay, he’s not gonna—_ ) and points out a third man, “he’s got the orange tent, come on over there. We’ll deal you in.”

The man nods, then closes his eyes enough to appear asleep. The shuffler has light brown skin and white hair, and appears to be between sixty and seventy years old. ( _Too old to be sleeping rough_ , the echo sounds concerned) The third man had looked somewhat younger, darker skin and long graying hair in twisted columns, an easy expression on his face. Boyd, the shuffler had said.

The man catalogues: oxygen is free and available, water won’t be a problem for some time, food is theoretically covered for at least a day or two, clothing is not currently a top priority issue ( _you stink like smoke and blood,_ the echo insists, _you gotta get to, I don’t know, do they still have the Y in the future?_ ). Shelter is slightly less pressing at the moment - the weather is adequate - and the cluster of bodies in the vicinity serves as camouflage for now. Knives are more than covered. Maintenance tools will have to be stolen later, once the man is slightly less conspicuous.

The man allows himself to doze very lightly until the sun sets, then stands. It was an invitation, not an order, but the man has begun to realize that he’s not going to get orders again, not for a while, and when a person is drowning they will flail for anything handed to them.

Boyd, the tall man, is sitting beside the shuffler and two other people in a ragged circle. The shuffler looks up, sees the man, and makes the smile again. “Hey, man,” as he scoots to one side, to make room. “Glad you made it. Boyd,” the shuffler looks around the circle, “guys, this is the new guy. I didn’t catch your name, son,” the shuffler looks back up at the man.

“Yuri,” the man says at the echo’s urging. He hasn’t used that name in what, thirty years? Forty? More. They’d used it for him those years he believed he was a real _soldat_ , before they sold him to S.H.I.E.L.D. and parts unknown.

“Ha! You don’t look Russian,” the shuffler said, making the smile again.

One of the other man, much smaller in stature, laughed. “Yeah, and you don’t look like a man with peanuts to bet, Ed, but you keep telling us you are.” The smaller man gestures downward, an invitation to sit. “Yuri, forgive the old man. Ed’s a real inquisitive guy.” As the man sat, the smaller man introduced the circle. “Boyd, he’s kind of the ringleader of the whole operation. You met Ed. That’s Ji-hoon,” pointing to an extremely handsome man. The man perhaps stares a beat longer than he had stared at the shuffler - Ed - and at Boyd. The smaller man chuckled. “Yeah, he’s real cute. Good thing, too, with all these ugly mugs around.”

The man makes a smile at the smaller man. The echo in his mind likes him. “And you?”

“Gabriel, like the angel.”

The echo in the man’s head makes a low, wounded sound, and the man frowns on instinct.

“You got a problem with me, bud?” The smaller man’s smile is pleasant to look at but, the man can tell, easy to turn cold and deadly.

“No. I knew a Gabriel. In the war.”

The extremely handsome man - Ji-hoon, the man reminds himself - shifts, his body language suddenly slightly wary. The echo finally puts a finger on who he looks like, flits a scene from one of the movies the echo knew by heart across the man’s vision.

_“How many other languages do you speak?”_

_“Russian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese.”_

_“Let's hear some Roosian.”_

_“Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon…”_

_“Is that Roosian?”_

_“Sure.”_

“Oh, don’t worry, pal,” the echo says, out loud, and luckily the man is unused to creating facial expressions, or he’d have looked shocked to hear it with his ears. “I’m long clear of that shit.”

Ji-hoon snorts and relaxes, looking even more handsome. ( _Holy hell,_ the echo whispers, _don’t go making any dumbass mistakes and maybe we’ll get laid for the first time in forty, huh?_ )

“You a Marine too, son?” Ed is dealing out several cards to each man.

“Army, then,” a pause. How to explain? A longer pause. “Related work.”

Ji-hoon’s face tenses for just a moment ( _still handsome, pal_ ). “Special forces shit?”

“Some. It’s hard to explain.”

Ed has dealt the last of the cards. “Well, I can see you got a lot to talk about, but I’m looking to win some peanuts off y’all, so ante up.” The other men reach into pockets and pull out - oh.

“You meant peanuts, real ones.” The man feels a half-smile grow onto his face of its own volition. “I don’t think I have any of those.”

“I’ll spot you,” Ji-hoon says, leans across the circle to drop a dozen in the man’s hand. He searches the man’s face, then sits back. “I’d put good money on you for a captain, am I right?”

The man laughs, hoarse and barking. “Never made it past sergeant, for my sins,” the echo spits out. The other men laugh as well, and the game begins.

Some time later, after Gabriel has cursed them all to whatever hells he can think of, Ji-hoon stands. “Well, Sarge, you got us all gutted.”

“Happy to share the winnings,” the man says, doling out the peanuts into even shares.

“I’ll take mine, thank you,” Gabriel says. “That poker face, Sarge, it’s ri-goddamn-diculous.”

The man shrugs one shoulder, tucks Ed’s share into the sleeping man’s jacket pocket. “Everyone’s got a skill,” the echo says idly. Boyd takes his share as well, and puts one of his blankets over Ed. Gabriel walks over to the tent he shares with his wife, muttering the whole way, and the man smiles at his back as he leaves.

“You watch his stuff for him,” Boyd says to Ji-hoon. “If you’re not busy.”

Ji-hoon winks ( _god in heaven, yes please_ ) and holds out one hand to the man. “Walk you back?”

* * *

The man has not been touched in a positive way in some time, and finds the holding of his hand is too much. They stop, and Ji-hoon smiles in the way the man will come to know. An easy, whatever-works-for-you kind of smile, one the echo seems to find familiar. “I can’t sleep if you’re here,” the man says, apology on his breath. “Or anyone. Not safe.”

“Damn, you’re fresh back, huh?” Ji-hoon nods. “No worries. I’ll sleep over here in Ed’s spot. Keep it for him. You get a night terror or anything, I’ll be right here to step in, and I’ll be far enough away you feel okay. Yeah?”

The man nods. As he tells his body to sleep, sitting upright against the culvert, the go-bag tucked behind his back, he can just see Ji-hoon snuggling down into Ed’s nest of blankets, pulling the cardboard box over his own head.

( _Aw, you tried_ )

The man dreams, ugly formless dreams that stick to him like cobwebs when the sun rises. A gulp of warm water from one of the bottles, a choked-down ration that tastes like sawdust with maybe a fifth of the calories the body’ll need for the day. Ji-hoon’s gone, and the camp is bustling: bags and tents broken down and bagged up, bicycles pulled from bushes. He sees Boyd doling out pieces of paper and strides toward him. “Hey, man, you gonna hit the shelter or walk today?”

The man stares blankly at Boyd.

“Yuri?”

“He’s fresh off the plane,” Ji-hoon’s voice calls from a ways away. “He’ll need to get the ropes.”

Boyd nods. “Hang out here for a second, let me get the others squared away.” The man perches, finding it strangely familiar. ( _He’d have made a good Howlie, huh? Quartermaster maybe_.) Watches Ed shoulder rolled-up blankets, neatly fold cardboard. Boyd tightens a strap on Ed’s pack for him. “You going to the Georgetown Clubhouse guys today?”

“Nah, my granddaughter’s. Tuesday, you know.”

Boyd smiles. “Aw, good! Tell her we all say hey.”

“I’ll tell her what I wanna tell her, you old busybody.” Ed stomps off, looking for all the world like — something. The man almost remembered it, for a moment. ( _Like Beck, pouting, that’s what you were thinking._ )

“Okay, so. Yuri?” Boyd walks toward the man, crouches slightly so their faces are even. “Most of us come back here around dusk, set up camp. It’s safer in a group, you know, and the cops leave this block mostly alone at night. But during the day we have to get out. You can find a shelter if you want,” he displays a sheaf of multicolored papers, “I’ve got their info and directions and everything. Some of the guys do that. Others walk the street, doing the panhandling circuit. A couple have day jobs they go to, like Gabriel. It’s whatever you want, and you don’t have to tell me, I’m not your caseworker. But if you want help, or a buddy, or to come back and sleep here with us so you’re not alone, whatever you need, man.” Boyd is looking directly at the man, and it is somewhere between unsettling and familiar, that open clear gaze. “We have to take care of each other.”

“I can get by on my own,” the echo mutters, speaking in someone else’s cadence.

“Sure,” Ji-hoon says, standing closer to the culvert than he was before. “But the thing is, you don’t have to.”

The man feels a few jagged pieces of his mind slot neatly into place. That, he remembers. “I’m not a safe person to be around, you know.”

Ji-hoon snorts. “Yeah, I got that from the knives and the, like,” he motions at the man’s crouching form. “Hypervigilance is a bitch, huh?”

With a sigh, Boyd stands. “Man, my knees can’t take that. Anyway, if you’re gonna do a shelter—”

“Not today, I think,” the echo interrupts. “Got some stuff to do. But,” the man takes over, “I would like to come back, maybe, tonight.”

“Of course,” Boyd nods. “Like I said, not till dusk, but Ed’ll probably skip tonight and sleep at his granddaughter’s. So even if your spot’s taken, we’ll keep Ed’s for you. Okay?”

“You don’t have to—”

“Hey, Boyd,” Ji-hoon interrupts, “Salvation Army still a barrel of assholes?”

“Yeah, they’re shitty.” Boyd flips through his papers. “But they got a bed open tonight if you feel like lying to them.”

“Maybe. I was more thinking about their shower.”

“Oh, the Y’s open again, they got that mold thing cleared up.”

“The Y?” The echo is surprised. “They still have those?”

Both men laugh. “Yeah, you gotta pay - if you got any cash on you,” Ji-hoon says, “they’re nice enough. I usually go to one of the gyms instead. Way cheaper, just as good.”

“I’ve got money.”

Both men nodded. “Then you should be fine.” Ji-hoon pulled a pen out of his pocket, wrote an address on one of the fliers. “That one’s twenty-five a month, but they ask you for ID. You got ID?”

The man shakes his head.

Boyd glances at Ji-hoon, looks back at the man. “Or this,” scribbles another address, “they ask for thirty but for forty they won’t bother with an ID. Private stalls at this one, too.”

The man takes the flier. “You do too much for people.”

Boyd frowns. “We do what we can with what we have. Nobody else is going to do it.”

“I can pay you.”

Boyd looks the man up and down. “You get a shower, get some food, get a phone, come back safe. Help us out with getting tents up, maybe, we’ll call it good.” Boyd made an aborted motion as if to place one hand on the man’s shoulder. “Yuri, right? You got a last name?”

“Barnes.” The echo snuck that one in.

“Okay, Yuri Barnes.” Boyd made a show of writing the name. “Now I got you on my list, you have to come back. Nobody dies until I beat ‘em at cards, all right?”

The man laughs, dark and hoarse. “I’m very hard to kill.” Looks to Ji-hoon. “Where’s the pawn shops around here, anyway?”

* * *

Acquired: several small specialized tools, three extra sets of clothing appropriate for the current weather, a deck of playing cards, a bag of peanuts, and several thousand dollars of currency, mostly American. Also acquired: knowledge of the whereabouts of Ed, and of Ed’s granddaughter. The echo in his head is impressed at the size of the gym, how clean it is, how many people there are - people of lots of sizes and colors and shapes, people the echo insists wouldn’t have ever darkened a boxing gym’s doors back in its day. “Hello, Ed,” and the man forgot, again, to be a little louder, to draw attention so no one is afraid.

Ed nearly stabs him. It’s all right, no hard feelings.

The granddaughter, Ava, looks just like Ed: same long-planed face, same brown skin with dots of dark freckles, same sprawling fluffy hair, though hers curls black and pink and Ed’s snow-white. “Gramps, you bringing friends now?” She nods at the man, knows enough not to move too fast or reach a hand out. “I’ve been telling him to bring you all around for ages, and he never will.”

The man watches a pair of boxers sparr, lazy impacts meant to warm up the blood. The echo remembers, a soft thrum of want the man can’t push away. “That one’s dropping her left too much.”

Ed’s granddaughter looks to where the man was and nods. “Yeah, she knows.”

“You box, son?” Ed looks excited.

“I did,” the man says, surprised.

“Any good?” Ed’s granddaughter peers at the man a little closer.

“Welterweight champ three years running,” the echo supplies.

Ed laughs, his white hair shaking. “You’re a welterweight like I’m the fuckin’ President.”

The man makes a half-smile. “I was back then.”

“Wanna go a couple rounds, son?” Ed puts up his dukes, big grin. “I’m game if you are.”

The man feels his face make a smile again. “Some other time, maybe. Gotta run some errands.” The echo slips in around the words now. “Boyd said I could borrow your spot tonight, if you stay here. That all right with you?”

Ed nods, pulls his granddaughter to his side. “Ava’s a good girl, makes a mean pot roast. You wanna join us for dinner?”

Ava’s eyes flick back and forth between them, and the man interrupts. “No, I’m fine, thanks. See you tomorrow, Ed. Ma’am,” brushes the brim of the cap he’s wearing, walks away.

* * *

The man cleans up again, even worse now that he knows the other players a little, and Ji-hoon walks him back again. Leads the man into his own tent, zips the flap halfway. The man keeps his breath, just barely. Watches Ji-hoon sit in front of him, knees nearly touching. “Good-looking guy like you, don’t think you’d be much for necking with a hobo, huh?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ji-hoon grins, slow and lazy. “Hobo’s not really the preferred term these days. And you’re not so hard on the eyes yourself, you know.” He scoots forward, slow and careful, watching the man’s eyes. “You good?”

The man leans into Ji-hoon, soft kiss, waits. “One second.” A long, quiet pause. ( _Think we’re green, honey_ ) The man leans forward, less soft this time, and pulls Ji-hoon forward to him, up into his lap.

“Fuck, you’re strong,” Ji-hoon laughs between kisses. “Tell me what you want.”

“This,” the man says. Touch has been very rare, positive touch almost nil, and the skin Ji-hoon is touching feels tight and hot and hungry. “Oh, shit.” ( _Do the right thing, sweetheart, you got enough red in your ledger already._ ) He pauses for a moment. “Two things.”

“Yeah?” Ji-hoon stopped immediately when the man did, took his hands off of the man, hovering just over the skin.

“One, Yuri’s not my real name.”

“Yeah,” Ji-hoon said. “Duh.”

“Two, I, uh, my left arm.”

“It’s a prosthetic, right?” Ji-hoon made as if to touch the left shoulder, waited for the man’s nod. “Felt pretty articulated, but you always got it covered. figured. Want me to ignore it, or—”

The man tears the left sleeve away. Metal, glinting, and worn red paint, and Ji-hoon’s far from stupid. He can see when the man puts the pieces together. Can feel the tension of Ji-hoon’s muscles on his lap. “You can go, if you—”

Another kiss, fiercer, and the man is lost for a moment. “You coulda killed me a million times if you wanted. Besides, I’ve always liked older guys.”

The man laughs at that, the hoarse bark he thinks he’ll probably always have, and pulls Ji-hoon’s head to his own.

* * *

The weather turns, and the man lets Ji-hoon and Boyd teach him about the shelters, lets them argue good-naturedly about this or that soup kitchen, this or that mission. Lets them lead him on a grand tour of places with food and beds and the occasional doctor in the house, lets Ji-hoon touch him any time, lets Boyd boss him around. Ji-hoon, it turns out, is as good in bed as the man ever was, and it’s good. All of it.

Food remains an issue. Several issues. Priority one: organize nutritional intake to reach minimum viable performance. Priority two: select foodstuffs primarily for caloric load and ease of digestion, disregarding other criteria. Priority three: regain previous ability to neutralize body’s negative reactions to most available foodstuffs. Priority somewhere way the fuck down the list: learn to eat like a person again.

Ji-hoon laughs at the man’s face, staring down at the bowl of…something. “Never had ramen?” He’s got two sticks - chopsticks, the man remembers them now - and is pouring a thick red sauce over the top of his own bowl.

“Once,” the man answers, “but it didn’t look like this.” He tries think about where he was when he had eaten this before. ( _After the war,_ the echo sneers, _after they wiped you out, that little stall the yakuza kids ran, remember?_ ) The ramen does not taste how it did the other time he ate it, but it is hot and salty. The man finishes the bowl in two minutes, and closes his eyes. “It had straight noodles, and a plum on top.”

“Oh, you had the fancy shit,” Boyd says, nodding amiably. He is eating his ramen with a fork, tentatively. “This isn’t bad. Cheap as hell, though. Can’t beat five for twenty-five, you know?”

The man feels his insides lurch, and stands.

“The usual?” Ji-hoon asks, but the man is already stepping quickly towards the center’s washrooms. He can hear, behind him, Ji-hoon summarizing for Boyd the man’s difficult time with, as he puts it, most things worth eating.

When the body is empty again, the man washes out his mouth, wipes his face. “Jesus, honey,” the echo whispers out loud to him, “you gotta get this handled, you’re gonna starve to death.” He is, he knows, barely taking in enough calories to maintain. Not nearly as many as he needs. Something’s going to give, sooner rather than later, if he can’t figure this out.

When he stalks back to the table, Ji-hoon has gotten the man a roll, a bowl of plain white rice, a glass of room-temperature water. It is nowhere near enough, but it stays down. A victory.

“I want a goddamn bagel. And a bowl of escabeche.”

“You’re such a New Yorker,” Boyd laughs. “We’ve got good Lao here, we’ll take you out. Or, well, you take us out.”

The man frowns at his empty bowl. “Can’t have anything with any salt. No flavor. Stupid.”

“That military shit’ll fuck your guts up,” Ji-hoon nods. “When I first got back I legit only wanted MREs, like some kinda idiot.”

The man has learned, a little, how to tell stories without placing them in time, without letting on how much older he is than these capable men. Carefully tells one now. “For a while we got these chocolate bars, alleged chocolate. Tasted fucking awful. Supposed to help morale, we told ‘em morale’d be better if we gave it to the enemy, watch them throw it back up.”

Ji-hoon cracks up, “Oh my god, the fucking HOOAH bars, I almost forgot the taste of that shit.” And began his own story of the weird, horrible rations experiments he’d endured in the Marines. Boyd laughs, hands the man his own roll, claps at all the best parts of the story.

* * *

“How many languages you speak anyway, Sarge?” Ji-hoon holds up two cards, hands them to Ed, who’s dealing.

The man looks at Ji-hoon. “Uh, I know I got English. Lots of Russian, lots of Polish, lots of Romanian. Decent amount of German and French. A little Japanese, a little Spanish.” A pause. “And a bit of Yiddish, sometimes.” ( _Sometimes you got other stuff, too, even if you don’t know it, huh?_ )

“Jesus,” Ji-hoon laughs. “No Korean in there?”

The man thinks hard. “I can ask for a bathroom, demand surrender, and order bibimbap. That’s about it.”

“Well, hell, that’s as much as I got,” Ji-hoon said, “You must’ve been good at school, huh?”

The man shrugged. “Languages, yeah, and I liked science. I did okay.”

“Son, you want any?” Ed waves the deck at the man.

“Nyet,” the man says, just to make Ed snort. “Boyd wants two.”

Boyd frowns. “Fuck off, Sarge, no offense. But yeah, gimme two.”

The weather has warmed again, and the man is a little less afraid. Ji-hoon’s moved the man into his own tent, and Boyd’s got him on the rotation, and Ed watches him box sometimes at Ava’s gym. Gabriel and his wife moved to a camp closer to her new job, but pop over once in a while with beers or bags of peanuts. It’s nice. Comfortable enough. The man watches the news, sees Rogers - Steve, Stevie, the little shit - doing things. Thinks he should get up there one of these days, straighten that kid’s head out a bit. Watch his six, since the only one who seems to be doing that is Romanov, with the occasional help of the cute one with wings, the Falcon. _Tomorrow_ , the echo says, emphatic. _Tomorrow, we head up there. He needs us, pal._

That night, in the tent, Ji-hoon takes it pretty well. “I have all this shit. I’m not gonna need it.” The man opens his bag, begins pulling out items. “Duct tape and garbage bags and rations, they’re not as good as yours but they’re yours, and—” more and more, and Ji-hoon’s eyes got wider and wider.

“Shit, you coulda told me, I’d have run off with your bag ages ago.” They grin at each other, and the man starts packing the bag back up. “You sure you won’t need it?”

“I’m taking the knives, and the gloves. The rest is yours.” The man slips a roll of currency in one of the pockets surreptitiously as he hands the bag over. “Sorry, really am, about leaving. But.” He pauses.

“I understand,” Ji-hoon said, nodded. “You got a whole other life out there, huh?”

“You are,” the man struggled. “You saved my life. You and the guys.” He looks up at the roof of the tent, blinking hard. “You did.”

Ji-hoon kisses him, soft and easy, then leans back. “Worth saving.”

“Maybe,” the man pulls Ji-hoon to him. “We’ll see.”

Ji-hoon is grinning, and the man kisses him one more time. “You hit a hard patch, come on back.”

He nods. “You ever hitch up to New York, you walk into Avengers Tower and tell ‘em the Winter Soldier sent you.”

“They’ll think I’m a goddamn hit man, I say it like that.”

The man kisses him again, can’t help it. “You’d be good at it.”

Ji-hoon leans away again. Looks him over once, twice. “Thanks, Sarge. Take care of yourself, yeah? You leaving tonight?”

“I got one thing I gotta stop off and do, then yeah.”

“Well, you know where I’ll be if you need me.” Another long, searing kiss, and Ji-hoon watches him leave, throws a salute his way as the man looks back. _Onward and upward, honey_ , the echo whispers. _Let’s go get him._

* * *

The vault is not quite the same as it had been. No doubt the Avengers searched it, or if not them then the remnants of HYDRA. The chair is still there, though, bolted into the floor. The man takes one, two, several deep breaths. Pops one of Ji-hoon’s peppermints in his mouth and refocuses.

There, in the center of theroom, it makes the man think of nothing so much as the crown of thorns: the circlet of machinery, of wires and madness and genius and steel. The man knows that in the murk of whatever had happened before, a version of the man had been what they’d called an ace with hotrods. He’d liked engines, that man had, and liked fixing things, and liked stories and radio plays with robots in ‘em. The man, now, likes some of the same things, and still can do them. Can repair the arm as needed in the field. Can adjust mechanical obstacles in the path of the mission. Can sabotage or destroy or reverse engineer anything his mission requires.

He wants, very much, to dismantle the thing carefully, to catalog it and understand it. But more, and at a base level, he wants to erase it. And so he does, piece by piece crushed and smashed and torn asunder, tears down the master’s house with the arm they’d given him. He goes somewhere else while he does it, into memory. Somewhere nicer.

Rogers had played chess, the man remembers. Small, sick, shaking, and had hustled half a dozen sailors on leave out of their pocket money once in a while when the weather was nice and one of ‘em looked interested. Had been, the man understood later, a tactician born and raised, had learned to think twelve steps ahead always. Maybe less learned to act on the thinking, the man thinks ruefully, but learned to think that way. Probably the illnesses helped with that: planning a day without harming yourself more than necessary would breed a way of thinking, too. The man wonders if Rogers still plays, if his blond hair still falls in his eyes while he’s thinking. Misses him.

The chair’s done. The vault’s empty. Time to go home - or, not home. Time to go to the last piece of home he’s got.


	2. we are many and they are few

The train was surprisingly difficult. A metal tube full of people, and while the man hasn’t had an unplanned outbreak of violence in some time, ( _shit happens when you ain’t paying attention_ ). The echo nudges him toward a seat, and the man stretches out, places his backpack next to him, looks out the window. It will take some time to reach Brooklyn, and he will have to, he knows, be very careful. He’s got the beard now, the shaggier hair, and he’s lost so much weight on this goddamn starvation diet he doesn’t think he’ll be obvious to lookers, but he’s got a noticeable enough face.

( _Remember that picture guy came around for that article, wouldn’t stop putting you in frame when he didn’t need you?_ ) The man does not, but in his research on Bucky Barnes did notice that Barnes was unusually well-documented in photographs. More pictures of him than any Howlie aside from Rogers, even in press that should’ve gone to Dernier. Barnes had been, it seemed, very handsome. That was dangerous. Handsome people are memorable. ( _Lucky you look like a junkie then, huh?_ ) He frowns a little. “Junkie” is rude, not a joke, and the echo sounds shamefaced when it apologizes.

He only has to lock himself in a toilet for panic attacks three times on the trip, and doesn’t pull a knife on anybody. He would get a cookie if he thought it’d stay down.

* * *

Reconnaissance on Rogers, Steven Grant, is depressingly easy. ( _He runs the same route every day at the same time, how the hell hasn’t he been—_ ) Takes a week. Really less, but the man lets himself watch a while longer than he needs. Watches Steve talk to people, watches Steve listen. Watches other people watch Steve. It’s nice. Reassuring. Other people, these days, notice Steve the way the man always had. ( _Betcha he hates it, though, people just seeing the brick shithouse and not the rest of it, same as he hated people only seeing the scrawny guy and not the insides_ ) The echo’s not wrong. The man can, when he sits four seats away from Steve in a coffee shop, see the lines of tension in his back, around his eyes. Discomfort, and a little leftover fear, and grief.

The man watches Steve enter a gym, slips in, watches him hit the bag until everyone else leaves. Rogers, Steven Grant, looks...the man pauses. He’s built like a gladiator, sure, and his hair’s less goofy-looking now, and those pants look painted on. The man can appreciate those things and still notice the grief etched in Rogers, Steven Grant’s every movement, the anger in every strike, the pain in every breath. His form’s fine, but there’s nothing to it. He’s not training. He’s not practicing. He’s just—

“Tired?” The man hears himself speak, not sure if it is the echo or him doing it.

Rogers, Steven Grant, has had enough training to keep a knife on him, thank the little baby Jesus, and if the man wanted to, he could break the hold he’s in, but it would require effort. The man and the echo feel a little thrill of pride. “Who—“ The man is released, one big heavy hand still on his shoulder, is spun to face Rogers, Steven Grant. The goggle-eyes look would be hilarious in a slightly different context. As it is, the echo just snorts a little. “Bucky?”

The man shrugs, hands out of pockets, spread easy and open. Still a threat, but as little of one as the man can make it. “Sure. You know you’re leaving one whole side open.”

Like a fish in air, Steve gulps for a second. “Yeah. Used to having the shield. Uh. Hey, Buck.”

“I taught you better than that, I thought.” The man lets his mouth make a smile. “Hey, Steve.”

* * *

There are interminable conversations. The man has to reassure Steve more than once that, while a lot of memory’s gone out the window, he remembers certain other things just fine. Gets the biggest roadblocks out fast: he knows who Steve is, he knows what year it is, he isn’t as far as he knows under HYDRA or S.H.I.E.L.D. control. He remembers the Howlies, muddled but there. He remembers everything he did as the Winter Soldier, much to Steve’s regret.

“I’m sure the young Stark isn’t gonna be happy to see me.” The man shifts his shoulders. They’re at Steve’s apartment, and his brain is insisting that it’s not safe, the perimeter’s shit, there’s zero cover and it’s not safe it’s not safe it’s not—“But I need his help. Or if you got a doctor on staff, maybe.” The echo finally tells his brain to shut the fuck up in especially colorful terms, and the man bites back a laugh, sips the lukewarm water he let Steve get for him.

“You hurt?” Steve, concerned nursemaid extraordinaire. “Bucky, I—“

“No, just,” a huff. Straight posture, blank face. “Function of the body has suffered. Minimum caloric load difficult to ingest given negative reaction to most foodstuffs.” Blinks. “If it tastes good it won’t stay down.”

“Aw, Bucky—“

“Look off your face, Steve. Once it’s fixed I’ll eat you under the table,” a snicker, he can’t help it, and Steve’s face pinks immediately, “but I gotta get this shook out. Can’t keep going on white rice and water.”

Steve just barely restrains the mother-hen impulse, and the man is so proud of him he almost kisses him right then and there. “Okay. Yeah.” He strides to the kitchen, digs through cabinet after cabinet. ( _We never had more than two cabinets between us, Christ on a cross!_ ) “Here,” he pulls out a teal-and-white contraption, domed and rounded with cords and plugs. Brand-new, shiny. “Rice cooker,” he plugs the thing in, “and I bet Stark’s got something. He lives on green shakes and freeze-dried blueberries, gotta have something for you. Or he’ll make it.”

The rice cooker apparently requires more technical know-how than Steve can muster, and when he looks over at the man with a pleading glance, the man is hit with a strong and sudden sense memory: Stevie with his hands in the oven, trying to make it light. Stevie staring at a math book like he can burn through it with his eyes. Stevie nudging the Howlies’ only half-working radio, scared out of his wits to actually use it. “I gotcha.” The man stands, walks over into Steve’s space.“Hey, Steve?” The man makes eye contact. “Sorry for pushing you off the helicarrier. And shooting you. And stabbing you.” The rice cooker is actually very intuitively designed. ( _He’s such a baby about anything modern, some things never change._ ) Steve’s mouth has opened and closed a few times. The man shrugs, lets a smile form. “Anyway. How am I getting to Stark without half of New York blowing up?”

* * *

In the end, it’s pretty simple. Steve calls someone, and the man can just make out a clear voice laughing as Steve explains the problem. When he hangs up, Steve looks a little easier. “Ms. Potts will handle it.”

“Ms. Potts?” Like the man hadn’t done his research. ( _Nice, lie to him right off, good plan, champ_ )

Steve laughs. “You didn’t research a target? For the first time in your entire life? Buck, you used to find out what a dame’s favorite flower was before you asked her out.” ( _Honeysuckle and morning glory for him, remember?_ )

The man lets an easy grin spread over his face. “Caught me. She’s in?”

She is, it turns out, in. So is the War Machine, at the sight of whose cheekbones the man feels a zing of attraction that, apparently, only Steve notices. The eye contact after is, the man can admit, very funny. The young Stark - who, the man is slightly surprised to see, looks older than the man does somehow - is not happy at first. Once the man explains, though, he can see the Stark tendency to get happy when presented with an impossible problem.

“Okay, old buddy, old pal, old chum,” the younger Stark says, tapping his chin with what looks like a scalpel for robot mice. “Caloric intake’s a bitch, huh? Sorry, Pep,” he calls over his shoulder, an afterthought. “Me, I use a lot of freeze-dried fruit, a lot of green smoothies, but your illustrious friend over there makes a face like I’m telling him to eat, I don’t know, tacos—“

“I like tacos,” Steve interrupts, red-faced. The man shoots him a wink, turns back to the young Stark.

“Of course you do, Capsicle. Anyway,” he looks the man up and down. “I’m more concerned about the seasonings thing, and the intolerances. We can pump you full of calories, but it’s vitamins and shit that make me worry. So, I’ve got a couple good nutritionists I keep around to reassure Pepper that I’m in the prime of my blissful little life, let me call ‘em. Get some blood work, which I can do if you don’t want a stranger, send your numbers over.”

“Tony—“

“No, Cap, come on. They’re good kids, and I pay them twice what it’d take to keep their mouths shut about any particularly weird blood work. Sound good to you, Ash?”

The man feels baffled. “Like from Pokemon?”

The young Stark looks just as blank for a moment, then guffaws. He laughs just like his dad did, the man thinks to himself. “Sergeant, my main man, how do you know about Pokemon? No, like from _Evil Dead_! The second one, specifically. Anyway.” He turns to a computer, giggling to himself, and seems to mostly forget that they are there.

“Tony, we’re gonna go.” Steve is still bright red, and the man knows that the echo, that Bucky, would love to give him shit about it. Maybe tomorrow, after he’s slept off the shock and the effort involved in meeting new people without killing them.

* * *

Steve’s on him, fast and heavy, and the man feels a spike in his brain. The echo needles him, and he pulls away with more reluctance than he has anything in his existence. “Stevie.”

His pupils blown, Steve looks. Just looks at the man’s face as though he could drink in the sight for another forty years.

“I was, after the helicarrier, I was living in a homeless encampment. For, eh, maybe a year. A Hooverville, really, but they didn’t know what I was talking about if I called it that.” The man tells him, about Boyd and Gabriel and Ed and Ed’s granddaughter, about Ji-hoon, about the people who’d helped him. Steve listens, laughs at appropriate times, manages not to react too badly when the man talks about Ji-hoon, about the rougher parts of that year.

“It sounds like you found a good group,” Steve says. He’s been making rice; the man wrote out in clear block letters a pointed guide to the extremely simple procedures. Steve’s stir-frying veggies, too, carefully not seasoning them. A test, to see. The man is almost certain it won’t matter, they won’t stay down, but it smells nice.

“Better than,” he chokes, just for a second. “Russia. You know, but Russia wasn’t all bad, either.”

Steve sets a plate in front of the man - white rice, a tiny pile of charred veggies. On Steve’s plate they’re mixed, with a bottled sauce to pour over. The man takes Steve’s hand, kisses the palm, starts to eat. “For a while, they had me living a life. I was a soldier, Yuri. Morozov, I think, was the last name. I had an apartment. I walked to the market and bought groceries,” he pauses. “I was like a person. Some hazy memories, you know, but a person. Real. And then when it was time, _nam nuzhen zimniy soldat_ , they came and picked me up, and then after, I got to go back to the apartment and the life again.”

“That—”

“Not what you expected, huh, sweetheart?” He grins, sharp and feral. “Zola sold me to S.H.I.E.L.D. in, eh, maybe the sixties. I’m not sure. By the time the bastard was dying, though, I’d started getting wiped a lot. Pushed into cryo more often than not. No more Comrade Morozov.”

“Jesus, Bucky.”

“Yeah.” A long silence. “It wasn’t bad, you know. Being Morozov, with his cat and his mug full of _kvass_ and his bowl of plums on his table. His job, his friends. Not bad.”

“Doesn’t sound bad.” Steve looks like he might cry. “Do you remember the friends?”

He moves one shoulder. “They’re dead, I’m sure. Coworkers of the Winter Soldier don’t have the best life expectancy.” He knows their names. He could look them up. He has not, because it would make nothing better.

Steve swallows, throat one long line. “You had a cat back home, too. Picked up a stray.”

“Oh, yeah? Morozov’s was Lyudmila, mean little shit.” The man lets his mouth make a smile. “What was the other one’s name?”

“Chuck,” Steve says, working up a smile. “He was dumb as a bag of bricks, kept falling off the fire escape.”

“I got a type, what can I say?”

“Dumb?”

“Mean. Well, both, preferably,” and whatever he was going to say next is caught up by lips on his, hot and real and now. The man feels Steve realize what he’s done, feels Steve think about pulling away. ( _Bullshit, honey, we’ve been waiting for this for almost seventy years, you hold him_ ) Metal hand to Steve’s skull, soft but heavy, and Steve relaxes back into it. It’s strange, not in a bad way: they hadn’t done this very much at these sizes, or at least with Steve as big as he is now. The man can tell Steve’s body remembers the man, Bucky, being bigger, stronger, that the man’s weight is too little for what Steve’s body thinks should be there. But, the echo notes, there’s a thrill in it, in being lifted straight up from his seat, set onto the kitchen counter. ( _You used to do this for him_ )

“Once upon a time,” Steve says, once even supersoldier lungs need a breath, “you used to scare me. Before, I mean. You never seemed to think about anything, just throw yourself into things. No worrying at all, about anything.”

The man laughs, hoarse and heavy, can’t stop for a minute or two. “Doll, you got the wrong goddamn end of the stick,” and the man can’t fault the echo for that. “You were the one jumping, and I was the one trying to put a for-the-love-of-god parachute on you.”

“I mean it, Bucky, I was so scared. When you were, when I knew you were out there, and I couldn’t—“

He leans down, soft press of lips. Steve almost tries to talk through it, but the man keeps pressing feather-light to Steve. Again, again, soft as breathing, until Steve’s eyes flutter closed, his neck relaxes, his hands span the man’s knees and rub soft circles.

“Hey.” The man smiles at Steve, watches his eyes flutter back open. “I’m right here. If Stark figures this shit out, I’ll get fat and happy and it’ll all be fine. Okay?”

Steve nods wordlessly, looking again like he had the last time the man, Bucky, had seen him before the train: blissed out, drowsy with it, content to take whatever was given him.

“You want to move to the bed?”

Steve shrugs one shoulder, blinks slowly. He’s in a good place, the man can tell, but it’s been long enough that the echo worries. “Sweetheart, I’m gonna need words from you, please. You want to keep going, move to the bedroom? Or neck a little in here? Or call a breather and drink some water?”

Blinking harder, trying to shake up onto the same plane as the man, Steve manages, “I want you in my bed. I want you in me. Please.” He blushes, just a little, and the echo crows victory within the man’s head.

The man slides down, using Steve’s big broad body as a prop, skims off Steve’s thin t-shirt. “Come on, then,” walks backwards down Steve’s hall, sheds layers as he moves.

They tumble into the bed, wrestle just enough to get Steve pinned beneath him, and neck for a while. “Christ, sweetheart,” Steve’s mouth is so hot, a fuckin’ furnace, “don’t stop, keep—”

That’s when he is reminded of how much bigger Steve is now: a flip, seamless and easy, and Steve is trailing that burning mouth down his chest, his belly, further south.

When they finally sleep, it’s light, easy, not anywhere close to deep but still more restful than he’s slept in ages. Morning sex, the man remembers, makes Steve loopy and grinning all day long, and so he makes sure to take advantage.

After, as Steve steps out of the shower, fucked-out smile on his face, he sees the man grinning at his phone.

“You laughing at me?”

“Nah, I got a, uh, a text. I guess. From a friend.”

“A friend?”

“The guy I was going with, in DC.”

Steve looks shocked for about half a second. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be ready for a, a serious relationship at the time.”

Bucky smiles. “I wasn’t, probably. Helped to have something to work for. But he was a real good guy. Handsome as all get-out, looked like that guy from _Daughter of Shanghai_.”

“I haven’t thought about that movie in ages. Remind me to get JARVIS to add it to our list.” Steve mock-frowns. “That good-looking, huh? I gotta earn my spot here, sounds like. Was this, uh, Boyd?” He slips back into bed, starts nosing at the man’s neck, rubbing down his ribs and chest.

“No, Ji-hoon. Boyd ran the group. Ji-hoon was a military guy. Marine. Figured me out pretty quick. He’s hitching up to New York, asked if I knew a good shelter in town.”

“He can stay with us,” Steve rushes to say, “we got spare rooms out the ass.”

“I’ll offer,” Bucky presses a kiss to the top of Steve’s head. “He may or may not.”

“Hell, you oughta move the whole group up,” Steve mutters.

“They got lives. Ed’s got family, half of ‘em have jobs. They know if they hitch up here I’ll cover ‘em. And the offer extends to us, if we hit a rough patch and need a safe place.”

Steve pauses. “That’s actually the nicest offer I’ve gotten in a long time.”

“Right?” The man loses a little time, Steve’s hands as hot as his mouth, just as careful, just as good.

Later, trying to force down another forkful of rice, he picks the thread back up.“Good guys, the whole group.”

Steve nods, wolfing down a platter of spring rolls like there’s no tomorrow. “I’d like to help, if I can. You’d know, what would help instead of make them feel bad?”

“Fund the good shelters, talk shit about the bad ones.” Bucky sits back, leans his chair back to balance on two legs. “Punch cards to truck stop showers, cash in their pockets, a shelter on each street to blow ‘em all outta the water, free healthcare for everyone, pick your poison.”

Steve blushes. “Working on the healthcare. Gimme a list of the good shelters and I’ll give it to Tony.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I know he hates the Salvation Army, but it’d be helpful for him to have a list on hand.”

“Aw, Moneybags’ll be so excited to call somebody a homophobe on the news again.”

“Like old times, huh?”

“Oh, hey,” Steve takes the man’s plate, frowns at it. “You gotta try another serving, Buck.”

“Ugh.” The man takes the plate back, scoops one more round of rice. “This is the worst, man.” He’s choking down another bite when his phone dings. At the same time, JARVIS comes on over the speakers in the ceiling.

“Sirs, a gentleman is asking for Sergeant Barnes at the front desk. Corporal Ji-hoon Park, USMC, late of Washington, D.C. The staff are detaining him, and he is in no danger, but obviously I need your approval to admit him.”

Steve looks at the man. “Buck?”

“Hell yeah, JARVIS, bring him up.” The man grins. “Been a few months, he’s gonna give me so much shit.”

Steve laughs, cleans up the plates. As though he thinks the man’s not looking, he starts a big pot of soup, the kind of hearty food the man can’t have, the kind that keeps in a thermos. The man presses a kiss to his neck, watches him blush. “Cute.”

“Shut it, Barnes, go get the man.”

* * *

“Ji-hoon, this is Steve.” The man motions behind him. “He’s gonna call me Buck, don’t worry about it.”

Ji-hoon looked good, had gained a little weight and let his hair start to curl around his ears. “Yeah, I know, bud.” Looks behind the man. “Holy shit, he’s a big dude, huh?”

“He didn’t used to be,” the man says. “Skinny little passant on the inside, still.”

Steve lumbers up, smiling, holds out one big hand. “You must be Ji-hoon, Bucky’s told me a lot about you.”

They shake hands, trade pleasantries, and Ji-hoon walks toward the pointed-out guest room, ready to drop his shit off and take a shower. Steve wheeled to face the man. “Oh my god, Bucky!” A hissing whisper, his face a picture of surprise and attraction.

“I didn’t shit you, huh?”

“Like he walked of a blessed movie poster! What are you doing with me? Hell.” Steve scrubs his face with his hands, rumples his hair, to the sound of the man laughing.

When Ji-hoon emerges, damp hair curling and feet bare, Steve’s dishing out two bowls of thick stew - potatoes, onions, cubes of carrot and mushroom. Ji-hoon oohs and aahs, wolfs down a bowl too fast, has to sip the beer the man pours for him. “You remembered I’m a vegetarian,” Ji-hoon says, lazy grin on his face, and the man can feel himself grin back.

The man gets a bowl of white rice and a tiny bowl of the broth from the stew, which he manages to keep down for nearly five minutes. “New record,” he grits out as he stalks toward his and Steve’s room, stomach roiling. When he finally gets back, there’s fresh white rice, and he wants, very much, to kill someone who deserves it.

“Hey, when are you gonna get that taken care of?” Ji-hoon is writing up lists for Steve, specific initiatives, the satisfied look of a full belly all over his face. “Thought that was half the reason you were coming up here.”

The man flips him the bird, sets in steadily to eat his goddamn white rice, listens to Steve sound charmed and a little embarrassed as Ji-hoon lines out ways Steve’s initial ideas won’t work, won’t be welcome, or can be made more accessible with a few little changes. The man drinks his lukewarm water, eats his empty carbs, and imagines it’s actually baby eels or soy noodles or something, anything else.

* * *

The young Stark bursts into their kitchen the next morning. “JARVIS, what the hell, man?” The man just barely doesn’t throttle the intruder; Ji-hoon and Steve both instinctually stepping between them helped, too.

“Sorry, bad habit, I’ll — hey, JARVIS, you’re good to always announce me when I visit here. Make it a production, will you?”

JARVIS sounds even drier than it usually does. “Of course, sir.”

“Anyway, Krycek—“Ji-hoon snorts, drawing the young Stark’s attention. “Oh, hello, extremely handsome man. Are you also a supersoldier my dad had a thing for who got frozen and doesn’t understand cellphones?”

“I understand cellphones, Tony,” Steve says, while the man says, “Stark had a thing for me?”

Ji-hoon’s snort turns into a full laugh. “You’re Tony Stark, right?” Holds out his hand to shake Tony’s; the young Stark, uncharacteristically, actually shakes his hand. “My unit had some Stark tech for a while. Worked like a charm, good job.”

The young Stark preens, basking in the praise. Ji-hoon leans toward the man and Steve, says, “I’ll let you talk. I’m going to go grab some coffee. Buck?” At the man’s nod, Ji-hoon bumps his forehead to the man’s, claps Steve on the shoulder, and slips by the young Stark on his way out.

“Why was an extremely handsome man here? Why did he almost kiss you, J. Walter Weatherman? Not that I blame him, I mean,” the young Stark gestures up and down at the man’s body, “but I wasn’t aware you were into dudes.”

“Some,” the man says in his flattest affect, heaviest accent, most fucking-with-somebody tone. He can feel Steve swallow back laughter.

“Huh! Fun fact for the day. So you’re dating Extremely Handsome Soldier Man, then?”

“Was.”

The young Stark, stymied, redirects his attention. “Anyway! The point. The point is that I think I figured out your shit. Well, the dietitian and the nutritionist and a couple of friends of mine and Dr. Banner, have you met Dr. Banner? He’s a delight, he turns into a giant green rage monster, it’s very sexy.” He rattles on, but the man tunes him out. At some point, he figures, the young Stark will do what the elder Stark did, change the pompous peacock act to the steely competence all the Starks have under ‘em. Eventually he hears the change, and tunes back in. “So I think, you have two equally delightful options. One is a minor surgery, rearrange some nerve endings in the gut and bowel?” The young Stark barely pauses, reads the man’s dace without even trying. “But the better option, in my personal not-at-all-humble opinion, is this.” He holds up a capsule, bright pink and blue swirls. “It’s not going to get shit out, my son, it’ll stay in the gut and do a slow-release of a sweet little chemical cocktail, nothing dangerous or gross, and you’re good to go.” The young Stark hands over a packet of papers - charts, pull quotes, the whole shebang - that the man immediately hands to Steve. “The docs recommend you go vegan, though, put less stress on the thing.”

The man looks young Stark in the eye. “This gonna kill me? Mind-control me?”

The young Stark, to his credit, doesn’t flinch. “If it does, let me know. That would be wildly out of its scope, and we’d get to patent it for a whole second thing.”

“Huh.” The man looks over to Steve, who’s flipping through papers. He doesn’t see dawning horror or abject confusion on his face, just the thoughtful, turned-inward look Steve gets when a plan has legs. “Sure. What’s the catch?”

The young Stark grins, feral and so much like his father the man gets a little vertigo. “Well, ‘catch’ is a strong word, but it means I get to call and ask how you’re doing, basically whenever I want, and you get to come in for scans and shit if I need you to. It’ll be so fun, playdates and whatnot. You think about it,” he looks over at Steve, “let Wonder Man over there peruse, let me know. No rush, just whenever you want to eat something that tastes like food.”

The man nods, watches the young Stark saunter out. He huffs, turns to Steve. “How’s it looking?”

Steve looks up, face careful. “I mean, I’m not a doctor. I’d love to have Dr. Banner tell us about it - he’s great at explaining this stuff.”

“Is he very sexy?” The man bites back a grin, watches Steve blush.

“But from what I can tell, it’s like a, I don’t know, like an insulin pump or something. Just making those enzymes your body isn’t anymore. It sounds very promising. Want me to call Dr. Banner?”

“No,” the man says. “Sounds good to me. Tell Baby Stark I’m down.” The man kisses Steve once, twice, three times; texts Ji-hoon about dinner options, and lays down for a nap. Tonight, with any luck, he’ll have something with flavor tonight. No meat, apparently - he’ll have to do some research - but spices. Pepper. Something, anything, and if he never eats white rice again it’ll be too soon. Take a pill, fix what ails you, living in the goddamn future. The man drifts off, dreaming of bagels.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Pale Horse," John Vanderslice
> 
> > Rise like lions after a slumber in—  
> > In greatly unknowable numbers  
> > Free the blood that must ensue  
> > We are many and they are few.
> 
> Ji-hoon looks a lot like [Philip Ahn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Ahn) (dreamy AF and famous from DAUGHTER OF SHANGHAI, KING OF CHINATOWN, THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, and more). The quote the echo supplies is from DAUGHTER OF SHANGHAI, which I really highly recommend despite its flaws - Anna May Wong is a treasure and it's got some really funny moments.
> 
> The unhoused community is part of our community, and I cannot recommend enough that if you are able you reach out to local organizations working with the unhoused and underhoused - they're our neighbors. They matter. Direct action is best, but if you don't know what to do, look up your local organizations working with the homeless and underhoused community. They'll start you out. We have to take care of each other.


End file.
